Why So Much Anger In Ferguson? 10 Facts About The Massive Economic Gap Between White & Black America

When people feel like they don't have anything else to lose, they are likely to do just about anything. Many in the mainstream media seem absolutely mystified as to why there is so much anger in Ferguson, but as I pointed out yesterday, all of this anger did not erupt out of a vacuum. Economic conditions in Ferguson, and for African-Americans as a whole, have been deteriorating for years. Sadly, many white Americans are totally oblivious to any of this. Many of them have absolutely no idea that the unemployment rate for black Americans is more than twice as high as it is for white Americans or that the average white household has 22 times as much wealth as the average black household.

But these are things that black communities are acutely aware of. Many African-Americans that live in poor neighborhoods deeply resent the fact that most of the people that live in the "good neighborhoods" are white while most of the people that live in "bad neighborhoods" are people of color. In fact, in America today a black child is nearly four times as likely to live in an impoverished neighborhood as a white child is. And when you throw endless police brutality and growing racial division in America into the mix, it is easy to understand why so many black Americans are so angry and frustrated these days.

Things didn't have to turn out this way. If we had all learned how to love one another and not judge one another by skin color, we could have had the kind of society that Martin Luther King once dreamed about...

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we're free at last!"

But instead we have allowed ourselves to become increasingly divided. And I am sure that fact will once again be reflected in the comments following this article. There is so much anger and hatred in America today, and people seem to love to express their anger and hatred on the Internet.

For white Americans (myself included), I think that it would be good for us to put ourselves in the shoes of the people of Ferguson for a few moments. For years, the economy of Ferguson has been declining. The following is how Brookings summarized the current economic situation...

The city’s unemployment rate rose from less than 5 percent in 2000 to over 13 percent in 2010-12. For those residents who were employed, inflation-adjusted average earnings fell by one-third. The number of households using federal Housing Choice Vouchers climbed from roughly 300 in 2000 to more than 800 by the end of the decade.

Amid these changes, poverty skyrocketed. Between 2000 and 2010-2012, Ferguson’s poor population doubled. By the end of that period, roughly one in four residents lived below the federal poverty line ($23,492 for a family of four in 2012), and 44 percent fell below twice that level.

And as the New York Times recently detailed, racial tensions have been rising in the city for a very long time...

As African-Americans moved into the city and whites moved out, real estate agents and city leaders, in a pattern familiar elsewhere in the country, conspired to keep blacks out of the suburbs through the use of zoning ordinances and restrictive covenants. But by the 1970s, some of those barriers had started to fall, and whites moved even farther away from the city. These days, Ferguson is like many of the suburbs around St. Louis, inner-ring towns that accommodated white flight decades ago but that are now largely black. And yet they retain a white power structure.

Although about two-thirds of Ferguson residents are black, its mayor and five of its six City Council members are white. Only three of the town’s 53 police officers are black.

So it is understandable why a lot of Ferguson residents are so angry and so frustrated.

Alternatively, there is absolutely no excuse for how brutally the (mostly white) police have handled peaceful protesters and the media. The police have been using smoke bombs, tear gas, flash bang grenades, rubber bullets and LRAD sound cannons against protesters that are not even armed. Meanwhile, the police have been doing next to nothing to stop criminals from looting stores and businesses all over Ferguson. It has pretty much been a textbook case of what not to do during a period of civil unrest.

Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and things will calm down in Ferguson soon.

But that doesn't mean that the underlying problems will have been fixed. The truth is that I believe that this is just a preview of what is coming to America in the years ahead. And much of the anger and frustration that is bubbling just under the surface in our communities has an economic element to it. The following are 10 startling facts about the massive economic gap between white America and black America that we see in our country today...

#1 For decades, the unemployment rate for black Americans has consistently been more than twice as high as the unemployment rate for white Americans. In July 2014, the official unemployment rate for white Americans was 5.3 percent. Meanwhile, the official unemployment rate for black Americans was 11.4 percent.

#2 A report released earlier this year discovered that the "underemployment rate" for African-American workers was 20.5 percent. But for white Americans it was only 11.8 percent.

#3 A study released back in 2012 found that the average white household has 22 times as much wealth as the average black household.

#4 African-American households make up only about 13 percent of the population, but they receive more than 26 percent of the food stamp benefits.

#5 One study discovered that 82 percent of white students graduate from high school but only 63.5 percent of black students do.

#6 Pew Research found that the income gap between white Americans and black Americans has continued to grow ever since the late 1960s...

The difference in median household incomes between whites and blacks has grown from about $19,000 in 1967 to roughly $27,000 in 2011 (as measured in 2012 dollars).

#7 In the United States today, 12 percent of white children live in areas of concentrated poverty, but 45 percent of African-American children do.

#8 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 19.9 percent of white children live in single parent homes. But for black children, the number is an astounding 52.1 percent.

#9 Since 1960, the percentage of white American adults that are married has declined from 74 percent to 55 percent. But for African-Americans the decline has been even more dramatic. Since 1960, the percentage of black American adults that are married has declined from 61 percent to 31 percent.

So how do we solve these problems? People have been debating this for years, but nothing ever seems to actually get accomplished.

Meanwhile, the middle class continues to collapse and things continue to get even tougher for African-American communities. The following is an excerpt from a recent piece that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote for Time magazine entitled "The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race"...

Dystopian books and movies like Snowpiercer, The Giver, Divergent, Hunger Games, and Elysium have been the rage for the past few years. Not just because they express teen frustration at authority figures. That would explain some of the popularity among younger audiences, but not among twentysomethings and even older adults. The real reason we flock to see Donald Sutherland’s porcelain portrayal in Hunger Games of a cold, ruthless president of the U.S. dedicated to preserving the rich while grinding his heel into the necks of the poor is that it rings true in a society in which the One Percent gets richer while our middle class is collapsing.

That’s not hyperbole; statistics prove this to be true. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center report, just half of U.S. households are middle-income, a drop of 11 percent since the 1970s; median middle-class income has dropped by 5 percent in the last ten years, total wealth is down 28 percent. Fewer people (just 23 percent) think they will have enough money to retire. Most damning of all: fewer Americans than ever believe in the American Dream mantra that hard work will get them ahead.

I wish that I could be more optimistic about the future of this country.

I wish that I could believe that we won't see a tremendous amount of chaos in the streets of America in the years ahead.

Unfortunately, the truth is that what is happening in Ferguson right now is just the tip of the iceberg. Once we hit the next major wave of our ongoing economic collapse, unemployment and economic despair in our major cities are going to grow rapidly. This will fuel more anger, more frustration, more protests, more looting and more rioting.

It has been said that desperate people do desperate things. And in the years ahead, ordinary Americans are going to become increasingly desperate.

I thought ZH liked personal responsibility. What the fuck happened to that? Blacks aren't responsible for their status? Racism is? Rate this fucking article a 1 so they don't post bullshit like this again.

Where was affirmative action when I need a job? Where was the federal gubbimint when I lost a job due to discrimination? No favorites when I went to college. Ohhh wait I see, being white means that I get the luck of paying for these lazy bastards to sit on their ass, loot their neighbors and blame me for the problems. F*&k you Snyder you damn libtard!!!

jesus you're quite the anthropologist. you should make your views public and write a paper showing just how much you know about black inferiority. Then we could make new segregation laws and name them in your honor. A 'la Crow.

nope, got hijacked by the tea party. Not everybody is supposed to agree in the comment section. That's called groupthink, and it's fucking pathetic, bunch of idiots all saying the same shit waiting for upvotes.

So how do we solve these problems? People have been debating this for years, but nothing ever seems to actually get accomplished.

It's 'our' (read: government) trying to 'solve' these problems that made them what they are.

LBJ killed the burgeoning Black middle class. Encouraging illegitimacy by subsidising parenthood via social welfare payments and housing, and minimum wage laws that make hiring un(der)skilled minorities uneconomic, and voila! you have what we have today.

This whole issue of "Whites got more than Blacks" is completely unacceptable and irrelevant. Any segment of the 1% that thinks they are getting economically short changed should know where to go. To the 1% people who have all the wealth, income and power. 99% Americans of all colors have zero impact on government policy and even less impact on corporate policy.

This is simply an attempt to divide and conquer the American people. It is a trite political maneuver last tried in the 1970s. G-d help any politician pushing this tripe.

The real issue of Ferguson is the militarization of police forces in America.

Who cares what incident came first? The police have a militarized attitude and view all Americans as Palestinians. When the people peacefully protested the act, they were met with a military onslaught. Unacceptable.

Blacks "having it worse" is debateable....but even if they did, it doesn't grant the right to rob a store, assault a police officer and then riot when he goes back for seconds and gets a well-deserved bullet to the head for it.

I grew up in a Trailer-Park as one of four boys to parents without a high school education. My parents went to bed hungry so my brothers and I could eat.

I still went to college and worked hard to get everything I have today. Don't give me the bull$hit that these people can't do it as well.

It starts with the schools. Check this out: Los Angeles schools to ease discipline policies to stem dropouts

Under the plan, students caught with tobacco, alcohol or marijuana or who commit minor vandalism or get into fights that do not cause serious injury will ... not be arrested or issued citations .. to stem dropouts

Look up the NAACP. Get their address and put a nice fat check in the mail to them. It's time for YOU to step up and do YOUR part to help out! Fairness doesn't stop at the border, comrade. Lead the way!!

1. Vent your frustration like I do by showing them that you have more respect for cockroaches and malaria than you do for their existence. Use words like "useless eaters", "surplus humans", and "useful idiots". They like that.

2. Prepare for the coming collapse. Divide and conquer has all but baked that into the cake by now.

3. Take solace in knowing that per (2), most of these people are going to be naturally selected in a decade or two.

Three generations of spoon-fed 'entitlement' combined with 'progressive' teaching about the 'wrongs' suffered by 'ancestors' (along with the stripping off of any family values en toto) have combined to create a subcaste generation of 'FSA' (also known as welfare-sucking leech maggots) who ALSO happen to be members of a 'specific' race (in this case, descendents of Negroid origins). Their taught ignorance for the past 60 years, combined with the teaching that they have no need to do for themselves because they are 'entitled', has made them in to hostile and unthinking fools (overall). THIS FACT, combined with the outsider influences (like the CPUSA bussing in whole shitloads of people to act as 'agents provocetuer'; and the militarized 'veterans' displacing the local police over the past 15 years) is almost enough to cause the spark that will bring in an overthrow of the Constitutional Republic (in terms of 'overall martial law' being declared throughout the 48 contigious States).

THAT, and the 17 trillion that the FEDGOV owes to the Chinese (and everyone else)...

THAT, and the continuous off-shoring of jobs in the past 30 years that has decimated any hope of rising in to the 'middle class'...

THAT, and the appearance that the POLICE are in fact FULLY MILITARIZED and view the people they were sworn to 'protect and serve' as THE ENEMY...

YOU, however, are a total douche for even referring to this issue as one of RACE (showing just how much you know about black inferiority).

The article is a 'race-baiter', but YOU are the 'RACIST'.

The 'MASSIVE ECONOMIC GAP' has NOTHING to do with what race one is 'genetically predisposed'. There are BANKSTERS, MINIONS of BANKSTERS, and 'lowlife scum'. PERIOD.

I wonder which 'race' is disproportionally and overtly represented within the "BANKSTERS" subset.

IS IT ASHKENAZIM; or KHAZARIM?

I really enjoyed Mel Brooks. He knew all about the difference between ZIONISTS and so-called 'JEWS'.

Up arrow, BK. The reality is, and I say this as a white guy, nobody will hire a black person, all other things being equal, unless they are forced to do so by a quota. And it's not just blacks. There is a melanin hierarchy in place, and we all know it. It's wrong, and it's ignorant and destructive.

Correct. The South African Apartheid regime operated on a similar premise -- they gave colored people with light(er) skin tone better treatment and more privileges than colored people with dark(er) skin tones, fostering internal divisions among non-whites and thereby preventing them from making common cause.

What's bone chilling is that the Western media uses a similar approach today. Colored women who bleach their hair and/or skin and who use wigs, weaves or hair-extensions (i.e.: who "Europeanise" in their appearance) are given preferential treatment in the media over colored women who remain natural. For all intents and purposes, the Western media promotes and rewards white-washing among women, and directly borrows from the practices of South Africa's Apartheid regime in how it sets out to achieve this.

Pretty sure Ferguson exploded mostly due to the fact that the police force in Ferguson ran more like a Gustapo. Example, that dude they jailed for having a similar name to a suspect, then realizing he's the wrong guy, still throw him in jail, beat the shit out of him, charge him with destruction of property for bleeding after the severe beating, then act like they did nothing wrong. That there shows me that there is a problem with the police force, the people in Ferguson don't mind their distribution on the wealth curve, they mind the people that are "protecting them" from themselves.

Not to mention that blacks repeatedly and religiously vote for the liberal in EVERY election no matter how much their situation turns to shit. It never even occurs to them that they should try actually voting conservative. Even worse, when blacks are polled on issues, and not told which party stands for which side, they consistently are conservative in their value base, aside from the gov't dependency/entitlement mentality which has been indoctrinated into them since they were born. Look at Detroit. Liberal waste land run exclusively by blacks. They vote like Pavlov's dog would.

Funny how all the other races that come here seem somehow to make it here. I'm sure that hard work and determination had nothing to do with it. The Mexicans take unbelievable risk to come here for the chance of a better life for themselves, and especially their children. That all being said, those commentator's and leaders shown on TV may want to reveal the truth to America, that the white race is a dying breed on its way to extinction. I can pretty much assure black America, that those that will be left to fill that void will hardly have any pity for them.

Slave, just you try to be responsible when you've been born and raised in a no-jobs, no-opportunity, no-money, no-education wasteland. Speaking is easy. Anyone can do it.

And claiming that "aren't Blacks responsible for their status?" in a country where the Blacks were first forcefully brought over as slaves, then contained with Jim Crow and segregation laws is beyond cheeky.

They were enslaved by their own kind in Africa and brought here by a ruling class interested in cheap labor. Sound familiar, DREAMers? Jim Crow was to prevent the Detroiting of Southern cities. Abraham Lincoln and Bull Connor understood this. Northern Puritans? Not so much. Look at what desegregation has wrought across America's schools, cities, and public spaces, and tell me it's a good thing.

It's not. And contrary to the Equalist and Multikult Mythos of the American Melting Pot, some peoples in the aggregrate are inassimiliable. I can see.

Slaves were bought, largely, by black Muslims. "Their own kind"-man, you really are dumb. In colonial Africa the 'Aricans were thousands of tribes all different , they were not 'their own kind' as you ignorantly put it.

kobe, you got the beef! truth is truth, but for "eyes wide shut"..it cannot be seen, nor can it's implications be allowed to come to consciousness..it is better to keep to lies otherwise years of programs based on these lies are policy designed to control the black in society for the benefit of a very few.

MAY THE UNDERGROUND BUNKER BLOGGING AREA THAT YOU CURRENTLY INHABIT BLESS YOU WITH ALL THE PARASITES FROM ALL THE WOMEN THAT YOU HAVE DEEMED WORTHY TO FUCK; AND MAY THOSE OVER YOU WATCH AND DENY YOU ANY REMEDY AS THEY LAUGH AT YOUR INABILITY TO RESPOND AS YOU WERE HIRED BY THEM TO DO.

I sit and re-read my real and unambivilous postings, and await the 'social media' responses by those would try to ingratiate me by attempting to call me by the 'familiar' fisrt name 'MONTY'.

I COULD be a disaffected black teenager, or a Mexican 'migrant', or George Soros himself (in repentence for past sins against humanity), but those who seek to kill and destroy don't really give a shit; now; do they?

When I check my 'junk mail' tomorrow, I'll see advertisements for Chinese and Russian women, Viagra, Canadian drug suppliers, and 'Investment Opportunities'. There'll be emails from all types of religions, and the Dem/Rep false paradigms will want me to sign up on their 'email' lists. There might even be emails that when I open them will download 'child porn' without my consent so that the DHS can swoop my house and put me in prison as a 'terr-er-ist'.

YOU ARE NOT ANYBODY IMPORTANT. OF COURSE YOU AREN'T. NEITHER IS WILLIAM BANZAI #7. TYLER DURDEN ISN'T WORTH LINKING TO. THE ONLY ONES WHO ARE IMPORTANT ARE THOSE WHO TELL YOU THAT YOU ARE NOT IMPORTANT. SHAWN HANNITY IS IMPORTANT. RACHEL MADDOW IS IMPORTANT. THE BUSH FAMILY IS IMPORTANT. HILLARY IS IMPORTANT. CHENEY IS IMPORTANT. NETENYAHU IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT.

YOU, however, aren't.

Actually, by the lead of your posts, you give this impression. Have you ever considered standing up; or are you willing to sit down while they do what they do to you?

You know the core gang after 3 weeks? Impressive. Is that what we're calling this circle jerk of old bitter rednecks sitting on the lazyboy with their dell laptops, entertaining each other with jokes 'bout colored folk?

OK dude, seriously, every one of your posts is fucking retarded. Did it ever cross your mind that people could have been lurking for much, much longer than they have had an account here? He just said that.

so sorry to interrupt you guys licking each others assholes. You're right. He could have been lurking in the shadows, waiting, hoping to join, but in the end knowing that the bar is so high... thanks to douches like you.

no, I was totally serious, I lurked too. My point is that the core group sucks. All you morons agree about everything, which renders the comment section useless for real insight. Now it's a popularity contest for retards.

Just realized I will turn five in two weeks. Fuck it seems like a million years.

Human nature, my dears, is....FLEXIBLE. ADAPTABLE.

We all have angels and demons within us. The whole point is to figure out what system of values and incentives gives us the best chance of a decent society. And guess what, it's capitalism, risk/reward, normal interest rates, putting theives in jail, all that boring shit that the psychos in charge think they can do without.

Have any of you Einsteins considered the criminal calculus in context? What's the hood rat vs. the Goldman partner's moral equivalence? Welfare mom vs. mercenary? Maybe a lot of this makes perfect sense given the moral landscape and choice menu on offer today. Are you trying to teach values? Model them?

After waking up to the fact that Randian individual anarchism is a romantic fantasy, actually derivative of Thoreau's anarchy (hint: real societies aren't made up entirely of able bodied men), let us reason together.

Take away all the special privileges bestowed upon blacks by the Demorats and blacks would sink even lower. Yes IQ matters and yes there are different mean scores between the races. You don't need a test to tell you that. Look at the difference between the kind of societies that blacks build - ahem - and those built by whites or asians. I don't know why people won't acknowledge the obvious. Are you blind? Do you think ignoring IQ makes you more moral? It's a con pulled off by the elite to make people think race and IQ don't matter. They know it matters. That's why they interbreed.

And yet none of the rioters want to return to their continent of origin which could not envisage the advantages of say, the wheel, for moving things around. (Those greeks with their honky geometry!) Not to mention any other scientific or technological innovation in the last millenium.

Only in the area of producing babies from multiple "fathers" to augment welfare checks do they excel. The great society programs are the root cause of poverty that the author of the article should have emphasized instead of the libtard rhetoric. Make people dependent and they will act like immature, irresponsible children, especially when that propensity already exists in their cultural heritage!

So, how do people like YOU, explain the fact , ( all you need are eyes) why blacks anywhere in the world can't get their shit together. And that's just dumbing it down. I guess it's all whiteys fault? Which, by default proves whiteys superiority by default. I claim whitey is superior. Blacks can't break whiteys chains, except politically using stupid white people and their guilt.
It ain't so because I point it out.

And if you are here to peddle inane 20th century marxist multikult agitprop, in spite of the mountains of scientific evidence showing different genes make different people make different outcomes then--

You are ignorant. You have been lied to about race your entire life. You're angry because your subconscious knows it. Your liberal arts professors, your mainstream media, and your kult leaders cannot quantify what biologists have. Undeniable Differences. You spew insults because you have no facts. You are living a lie and defending it beyond all evidence and reason. Let me offer you two alternatives:

BTW: I lived in St Louis 2012-2013. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind whites and blacks are different. Not necessarily an all bad thing but there are certain aspects of black culture that are showing themselves here and they are not all positive like liberal america would have you believe. They do not even believe it themselves or so many neighborhoods in St Loo would not be all black!

The bell curve is when you go golfing and you are playing like shit and then you have a beer and you get a little better so you have two more beers and you start playing really well but then you have one more beer and start playing like total shit.

I don't think that is really the point. Perhaps it is time that, as the majority in this country, and in control of most of the power structures, we admit that we have not done such a good job of managing things including economic opportunity. I see no evil in taking responsibility that some of the social and economic issues we face now are our own making over the past 100 years or more. Projecting blame (calling people lazy or retarded) does nothing to further the discussion or help solve the problems. If we don't address it these problems will continue to get worse until the entire country will be like Ferguson, Mo. You can't tighten the yoke and expect people to just comply. We also can't build enough prisons or hire enough militarized police to protect us from what is coming. If an alien came to this planet and looked in our prisons and saw that the black prison population is 3 to 1 over whites what would the they think? It is absolutely illogical (not to mention incorrect) to blame an entire race of people and claim that they are deserving of this treatment. We better take a long look at ourselves before it is too late.

ps, my fault - the elite would love it for us all to think your way...I made no laws no regs , I did not refuse to inforce what laws we have, I did not ask to have industry hollowed out thru free trade ..I consistantly voted against those that did. You better step back and look at the big picture of treason at the highest levels of international corps, banks, and groups like the CFR. we were and are along for the ride.

F this Snyder guy. Liberalism since LBJ and even before has been terrible for black people. They have a gutter culture that was not this bad in the 1960s. Trating their women like "bitches" in the gangster culture and it is a big joke or it is celebrated. WTF?

And blacks voted for this and we know red and blue team but it has progressively gotten worse. Obama's open border invasion is such a "good" thing for black people.

Snyder is a DC attorney who smartly realized it was easier to latch his dirty beef curtain vagina onto any issue he can find and make a list in between tennis lessons and shoot it out from his laptop while enjoying a frappucino.

As a white employer, the more special legal protections and liabilities that black emloyee candidates have, the more risk and problems there are to hire such candidates. Employers have enough risk and business problems than to hire such legal risks. All an employeer wants is to make a profit and to minimize uncertaintity or risk. The government does more to hurt black upward mobility than any racial adversary,

all you say is true - but that doesnt change the fact that these people are targeted for bigotry at many levels from birth

action creates reaction and in turn another action - which after a long string you lose sight of what the original cause was for a persons: actions, attitude, lack of self esteem

take a look at the Gardner video - small community, cops knew this guy selling cigarettes not stamped for "years"- had profile of no previous violence but petty issues - five cops - five - one chokes him the rest take him down to the ground - hold him while he protests he couldnt breath - NOT ONE COP of the five said stop - all - in my view are murderers not just cop who choaked him

then emergency responder did nothing - on orders from the cops - DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES -

so if you can get murdered for practically nothing - would you have a chip on your shoulder - waiting for when they decide to pull the plug on you?

white guys have it easy in comparison and I'm a white guy and an employer. owner, ceo etc for multiple businesses employing thousands over 40 years.

"white guys have it easy in comparison and I'm a white guy and an employer. owner, ceo etc for multiple businesses employing thousands over 40 years"

LMAO! yeah, right. Getting into Harvard with an 820 SAT score and whites have it easy? And nice self-pat on the back, you're prejudiced but know it so it's ok in your case. You employ thousands, yet fuck around here and can't spell "choaked"?

I don't know Doc.....If I knew I would have done it by now. I wanted out a year ago. It's an addiction and if you go you just gotta go cold turkey is my guess. Wake up one day and start fresh and that's that.